1. Field
The disclosure relates generally to the field of inventory management, and more specifically to systems, methods, and devices for tracking and estimating inventory of a plurality of items.
2. Description
Tracking of inventory is a requirement for many types of businesses. For example, a restaurant needs to know what and how many food items it has in stock so that it can ensure it has enough inventory to handle anticipated orders. Further, the business needs to know when inventory levels of various items have dropped to a certain level, requiring reordering. In other examples, manufacturing facilities need to know what and how many raw material items are in stock so that the manufacturing facilities can ensure there are enough raw material inventory to handle anticipated orders or actual orders. In yet another example, warehouses and/or retail stores need to know what and how many product items are in stock so that the warehouses and/or retail stores can ensure there are enough products in inventory available to handle anticipated orders or actual orders.
Generally, a business that operates using inventory must periodically physically count everything in inventory to reconcile their systems. For example, some product may be lost or wasted during production and/or stolen, leading to inaccuracies in what the inventory system says is in inventory versus what is actually in inventory. Accordingly, a business will periodically physically count everything in inventory. For example, in a restaurant business, the business may do a weekly inventory whereby every single item in inventory is counted once a week and the businesses inventory system is updated based on the actual count.
Physical inventories present various problems. For one, counting all items in inventory takes a significant amount of time. This is time that the business will need to pay its employees for that is not productive time, meaning sales are not being generated by the time spent conducting a physical inventory. Further, as physical inventories are typically conducted by employees, human error can be introduced, such as when an employee does not count goods accurately, forgets to count some items, and/or enters his or her count incorrectly into the inventory system. Accordingly, it can be advantageous to have systems, methods, and devices that enable robust and efficient tracking and estimation of inventory.